Basic Blog Tips

How to Get More RSS Feed Subscribers: 10 Tips

Have you ever wondered why some websites have thousands of feed subscribers while others do not? Automated feeds make it easy for subscribers to follow you, often resulting in more visits, more clicks, and more sales.
When subscribers are absent, you are missing revenue too. Here you will learn list building tips to get more feed subscribers: 10 tips will get you on track to building the following you and your blog deserve.

1. Make your feed visible – Often RSS feed subscription options are either missing from a website or are hidden away at the bottom of the page or obscured by ads or other distractions. To get more subscribers, visitors to your site need to see that you have a feed and be encouraged to subscribe to it.

2. Use an image – Many websites rely on text-based feed links. By using an image such as the traditional feed icon, visitors will recognize that you have a feed and may subscribe to it. You can even get creative and create your own feed images: just make sure that they have elements that resemble common feed icons. Download a great looking, free Web RSS icons here.

3. Avoid too many feed options – You’ve probably seen websites where virtually every feed service under the sun is listed, many that most readers have never even heard of. All those options can be overwhelming and confusing to your visitors. In fact they may make your site look so cluttered that visitors are driven away. Choose one or just a few of the popular options and place them where users will see them and recognize what they are.

4. Send a complete feed – Many people use incomplete feeds to try to lure readers back to their site, but this doesn’t always work. Your feed is supposed to save time, so if a user thinks that following up on your initial blurb is too difficult or time consuming, you may get dropped. People want feeds to save them time, so give them the option of reading on without taking further action. If you’re content appeals to them, they will click over to your site to leave a comment.

5. Cut out the feed advertising – Ads are everywhere online, even in places where people don’t want to see them, including blog feeds. Give your users a break and don’t risk turning them off by pelting them with ads through a medium that should serve to keep them updated with the latest content from your site. Especially as you get started, you will find that feed advertising is a liability that can cost more than it’s worth.

6. Stay focused – People seem most inclined to subscribe to RSS feeds when it matches their particular interest. To get subscribers, keep your content on topic to increase the potential value of your feed to subscribers. If your content is all over the place, many will opt out because you are wasting their time.

7. Make a special offer – Try offering a giveaway to promote your feed. Those who subscribe get a special something as an incentive. Just make sure your incentive is something people might actually want and won’t turn them off when they get it.

8. Use a special landing page to drive subscriptions to your feed – Design an optimized page that will use SEO, AdWords, and other techniques to feature your feed.

9. Offer a feed to email option – Reality is that many Internet users don’t want to mess with RSS. Give these users an easy way to subscribe by offering feed to email options from services like Feedburner.

10. Try your feed – Don’t just set up a feed and leave it: go the extra mile and see if it actually works. Many of your visitors may try to subscribe, but can’t do it because your link doesn't work. Links that don’t work are unimpressive to say the least, and certainly won’t help build up your subscriber base.

You have now seen how to get more feed subscribers: 10 tips can revolutionize your efforts to build a subscriber base. Begin today and subscribers will come faster and easier than you ever thought possible.

Hi Karl and Alex, I think James will stop by later with a response but for now I wanted to add this. I saw some interesting research conducted by Dan Zarrella on what’s known as social proof Dan used two different RSS count widgets on the same post to see what the difference was and here are the results
There wasn’t much difference in the number of clicks for a widget showing a very low count vs. a very high count. I found this very interesting, what do you guys think?

There are lots of variables that can be factored into the tests but the findings are interesting.

In regards to the RSS counts, just from an authority point of view, it is reasonable to assume that people landing on a site with few tweets, few comments, etc will view the site as less of an authority than those sites with high feed stats and lots of comments. This will have an influence on our behaviour based on our expectations when landing on the site (although, yet again, other factors influence us such as site design, color schemes, personal biases and expectations, reader / customer testimonials etc, badges of authenticity, etc).

I did read a research paper about RSS feed stats and the influence of site visitors and I hope I can dig it up somewhere and find the original source to reference for you (this is going back some years now).

Dan, I find it amusing the way you conducted these tests and how people might be so easily influenced by numbers which may or may not have a thing to do with the actual content of a post.

Typically I ignore subscriber counts on FeedBurner widgets. Primarily because I don’t subscribe to blogs in a reader. But I realize that I am an exception to the rule. If I visit a blog like yours for the first time and saw that you had 0 subscribers I would assume that there’s something wrong with your feed count (not your content) because it’s obvious that your blog wasn’t hatched yesterday.

I’m much more of a Twitter addict so in the case of the retweet button it wouldn’t matter what the count was on the button, if I like the content and I think my followers would find it interesting I will retweet it. However, seeing a low retweet count would influence me to see how many comments the post had and if the number was small I would leave a comment too. I would also be inclined to Digg, or Stumble if I felt the post needed additional exposure.

Bottom line – if I didn’t like the content I don’t care how many retweets, subscribers or comments there are.

Thanks for doing these tests and continuing your examination of social “proof”.

I see you’ve made quite a few valid points about the confidence instilled with the number of subcribers on your feed count.

At the end of the day it’s all terribly subjective and really depends on the person viewing the feed. There are so many factors that can influence a person that you can’t honestly come up with a concrete, fool proof method to get subscribers.

I do agree with Karl though. People will be much more confident in your material and your authority if you have a large number of subscribers. I guess the reason is, if so many people can trust your work, why can’t they?

Hi Ryan! You bring such positive energy whenever I see you. 🙂 You know it’s funny, just today I typed in a search query into a box that was really for subscription sign up. I guess it’s just me – I see a box and I think “search” not “subscribe”. Thanks for your comment.

Haha, happens to me way too often! Thanks for the comment Ryan, and you’re totally right. Making your RSS image as striking as possible will definitely draw the reader’s attention…which will ensure that your audience at least registers that your feed is there! It’s really about ease of access as well…even I find myself closing pages because it takes more than a couple of seconds to find what I’m looking for.

Perhaps people are referring to Google Reader and how the usage of it and other feed readers is going down. I think the trend is moving toward people subscribing by email rather than readers. Besides RSS can’t die because everyone is feeding into Twitter! Just the Twitterfeeds for Mashable alone is enough to keep it alive (had to get that out there since it’s one of my pet peeves):)

I hope you should be getting nice number of subscribers. Posts like these must evoke action. I’d already subscribed your feed to read on my Yahoo Reader.

As per your suggestion to display Full Content on feed, would this not reduce the blog traffic? Because they are receiving everything in their email or feed reader, why should they visit your blog? And would this not have negative impact on monetizing your blog?

I was looking for somewhere to add my thoughts on full feeds vs. summary feeds (appropriately called being a “tease” on feedburner). As with most things, both types have their pros and cons:
Full feeds are great for offline reading, but that makes the feed larger.

Summary Feeds are great if your visitors don’t always want to read everything you write, but that means they still have to click through to the ones they want.

Summary feeds are supposed to lure readers to your site but, if you have full feeds with links that you want them to see, it shouldn’t matter. On the other hand, if you’re relying on traffic to justify banner ad revenue and/or you need Google AdSense clicks, then full feeds defeat the purpose – that’s why FeedBurner offers to monetize your feed!

Those are just my couple of thoughts; I’d like to see if any more ideas appear here.

Mitch,
It’s always a pleasure to see you hear thanks for your input.
I use full feeds. I see how many bloggers are stumped by this issue; here are some additional points to ponder:
1. On one want we strive to increase our subscriber counts, on the other hand we want loyal reader to come to our site.
2. Many readers rely heavily on feeds to curate content, and many others use Twitter or email.
3. Let’s not forget concerns over content scrapers that might use your feed to exploit your content by posting it on their site
If you subscribe to the feed for Basic Blog Tips you will get the full posts and I use the @Feed plugin to deter content scrapers. I do this because I would want the full feed if I was a subscriber.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it 🙂

I will be losing all the possibility to revenue if I let all of my contents to feeds, isn’t it? I would like to promote my site at first priority and use feed as a means for readers to get notified about updates.

The next thing, I did not find my posts on feed as I had formatted and the lay out I worked so hard on my post. Formatting too matters to read, doesn’t it?

Very salient points. Being a technophobe I got a techie to talk me through how to set up my feed and it’s done the way you recommend. I agree not to put numbers down till they reach 100 as people do look at those things when they visit a blog. I know since I have been getting more comments on my blog, more people visit and comment too. Great post and this information very valuable especially for newbie bloggers.
Patricia Perth Australia

Hi Patricia, thanks for the comment! I’m a bit of a technophobe as well, I have to admit…learning how to blog has been quite a challenge! Anyway, the internet is about community, so when people see there’s an active discussion going on they always feel more comfortable joining in. I find it’s much more satisfying than making one lonely comment 🙂

Hey James, good stuff. I believe in what you said and testing/subscribing to your feed. And YES! Always include full text. Summary is not even enough to be tempting, for me.

My feed contributes to the top 5 referral sources to my blog, so for people who don’t think it works, they need to re-evaluate that kind of thinking! Perhaps it’s Karma, because I visit the blogs of feeds that are set up in my reader almost daily. The feed, for me, is more of a notification. I still come back to the blog since that’s where I would prefer to read what they have written.

Hey Tia, no worries 🙂 You’re right about the feed being a source of notification. It’s also helpful if you haven’t visited the blog in a while…because you might see something that strikes up interest and draws you back to the blog. It’s a great way to ensure that there’s always a chance that visitor will return to your blog someday.

Dennis, I think it’s great the way you reach out to other bloggers that way. There are so many things we bloggers need to pay attention to and many times we simply forget or assume that users can navigate our sites easily. Thanks for doing that. If you’ve got any pointers for me, I’m all ears 🙂

Ironic as this may sound, 50% of web browsers still have no clue what an RSS feed is. You should have an option for users to subscribe to updates via email and put in very easy to understand terms for casual browsers if you cater to casual readers as well.

Hi Justin, I have to agree! A lot of users have no idea RSS even exists…so if you think your audience is the type then you have to put it across in simple and clear terms. And preferably without a lot of technical jargon and long winded explanations 🙂

Strange that you should mention that since I JUST recently added a ‘RSS In Plain English’ widget to my sidebar leading to an article that goes into detail on RSS.

I think maybe b/c when I first started my online venture I was CLUELESS on what it was and how to work it…since my target market are people who were like me thought it be a good idea to help explain it in detail.

Anyway, great post James. You’ve touched on all some very helpful tips! Not too sure on the advertising tip just yet though. I haven’t done it myself yet (not even sure how it works b/c of it) but I can see how it may come in handy if you are promoting a new product.

But of course it should be kept to a minimum either way…most of your promoting should be done on your central hub or in email marketing. Just my 2cents. =)

I think that point 3 is very valid and in my opinion is most easily resolved by using FeedBurner for your RSS feed. That way, you can direct everyone to your FeedBurner page, where they can choose from any number of subscription options, including of course, RSS.

Hi Dave. I use FeedBurner and I’m also testing FeedBlitz. FeedBlitz offers similar options to FeedBurner in terms of readers . I’m always sure to include the email option in my settings, for those like me who don’t use readers. Thanks for your feedback.

Ileane, point#10 is one of the crucial point and I will further add to it. Subscribe to your own feed and check it from time to time that it is working or not. Sometimes what happen that we use some word processor like MS Word, which adds some characters that are not acceptable in feeds and your feed simply don’t get update.

Hi Imran, I subscribe to my feeds by email because I like to make sure they are being distributed at the appropriate time.
I’m sure you know how to do this, but in case someone else needs the instructions, here’s how to set the distribution time for your feed. Go to your FeedBurner account and
1. Navigate to the Profile Tab at the top
2. On the left choose Email Subscriptions
3. Delivery Options
4. Scroll down to the time you prefer and save your changes

Wow Ileane, you posted a full fledge tutorial on distribution timing. Yes, it’s also important to check the delivery timing and preferably set the timing according to your target market. A nice tutorial. Keep it up.

Imran, I’m glad you’re following the comments and got a chance to see that little Feedburner tutorial. This also opens up another topic. I wanted to see what steps are needed to do the same thing in FeedBlitz and the process is much more complicated but that might turn into a blog post 🙂

I’ve been wrestling with #4 and I think you’re right, my feed should be complete and not just excerpts. I’ve heard this before, but now I think I need to put a little more weight on it. Some changes to be made. Thanks

Reading this made me realize that I should work on how I present my feed. I never really thought about people not wanting to use RSS (I’ve been a fan of it for years) and that they might prefer it sent by email, will look into that tomorrow. Great post, thanks!

Cool tips ! Also if you are having higher posting frequency like 3 to 4 posts a day then its better to switch to teasers , otherwise full feeds 🙂
Feedburner is best option than feedblitz as its quite user friendly only with a big drawback that it shows absurd stats most of the times 😛
Must say , i have learned a lot !

Hi Blog404, I would like to add something about Feedblitz and the “absurd” stats. I noticed them right away too. At first I was thinking I must be pretty awesome to get over 1,000 hits a day on a brand new blog. Then I looked at the referrers and realized that FeedBlitz was the culprit. After talking to Phil Hollows, the owner, I changed my Feedblitz setting for stats tracking from FeedBlitz to Google Analytics and the numbers returned to normal.
I hope that helps.

Great tips. I particularly like the idea of a special landing page just for your feed. I’ve run across this on a couple of blogs now and am really impressed with the idea. I’ve also seen blogs implementing the landing page after someone leaves a comment. I think that’s really effective.

Great Tips. I haven’t tried any of these tips. Actually I am not caring much about the feed subscribers at all and I know this is very wrong. Will try to rectify this mistake myself, by following your tips. Thanks for sharing.

Sathish, I’m glad you find the tips helpful. It doesn’t take much time to set up your feed with FeedBurner and I’m exploring more features so expect to see more tutorials on the topic. Thanks for reading the post.

I really like the idea: “avoid too many feed options.” For reader who don’t have a lot of RSS experience, it makes it one choice and worth checking out. I like to focus on the e-mail RSS. It give a little extra data about the subscriber. Though I can see the merits of a standard RSS feed too.

Excellent post packed with juicy information. Very informative blog, fall in love on 1st sight :).The special offer for feed subscription & landing page strategy for feeds are great ideas. Have a great day guys.

Feedburner works for me and is very easy to set up and add to your sites. Most newer WordPress blog templates have it integrated so that all you have to do is add your feedburner name and all else is set up.

Thanks for these great blog tips. I found this site via Youtube “How To Add Your Logo and Branding to Your RSS Feed on FeedBurner” I’ve been a problogger.net a few times but I’ll be coming back here too. I’ve also been getting outsource from Fiverr.com. They will help you out a lot for a low price. Especially when your too busy and your time is limited.

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Have you ever wondered why some websites have thousands of feed subscribers while others do not? Automated feeds make it easy for subscribers to follow you, often resulting in more visits, more clicks, and more sales….

About Ms. Ileane

I'm a blogger, podcaster, YouTuber and social media diva (or Social Media Veteran if you like the way that sounds better). True story: I started blogging by accident when I actually thought I was "subscribing" to my daughter Nicole's first blog. Since then I'm committed to helping others avoid all the mistakes I've made along the way. Get one-on-one coaching and exclusive perks when you join my community on Patreon!Read More…